no, i am NOT a discordian in disguise: this forum is an ignored warning to the world: some day, though it is not my wish, i will be forced to say I TOLD YOU SO!

Monday, March 19, 2007

Bottled Schizophrenia

Our 'friends', the Discordians, would have us believe, on top of being apes, that each of us also has five minds inside their skulls. I suppose -if it were true- this would go a long way toward explaining their own behaviour at least, if not eveyone else's.

They claim that the human mind uses steps of evolution and these steps are formed when the human mind reaches a new plateau of development and the mind is 'imprinted' with new information in some way. Apparently standard 'learning throughout life' isn't good enough, and the learning must come with much pomp and circumstance. One might be lead to believe -if their critical faculties were turned off- that one needs traumatic events to learn . . . a good excuse for those whose religion is based around causing chaos and disruption? Surely I am just cynical.

The Discordians would have youy believe the five stages of the human mind are as follows:

1: "The Reptile Mind"; the oldest part of the mind, concerned only with safety and nourishment.

2: "The Primate Mind"; concerned with pack status, or group politics, territory.

3: "The Pattern-Making Mind"; the part of the mind which understands how we fit into time and history, putting concepts together.

The Discordians actually promote this schizophrenia as a well-adjusted mind, rather than a sad splintering of a once whole ego. Dividin up our impulses, giving them names, and blaming them for behaviour is a fundamentally flawed concept of logic, and is ultimately lazy and self-serving.

Sigmund Freud divided the mind into the id, the ego, and the superego: 3 parts. L. Ron Hubbard chose to divide it into 2 parts. Three plus two equals five. What's wrong with that? You would have us believe that the mind acts as a united whole, and that it has no parts. So then, the fact that it is divided into 2 hemispheres, each made up of billions of interconnected neurons, individual brain cells, is of no importance to you. Now obviously if I were to say the mind has billions of parts, that would be too complicated. So to model such a complex system, people have to pick a smaller number, usually less than 10. What is so wrong with 5? Does your theory of 1 unified mind really match how things work in practice? According to your model of 1 unified mind, nobody ever has any internal conflict within their mind, because that would require at least 2 parts for the mind. That theory of 1 part simply does not match reality. The number 5, while probably not correct, is closer to the correct answer than 1.

it actually kinda makes sense, considering its a joke, it reminds me of Dr. Timothy Leary's 8 circuit model of conscience. Maybe you think of everything one thought at a time, but I usually base my decisions of lots of different information, and find myself with the ability to multitask, which must seem supernatural to a singleminded regressive such as yourself. of coarse once you reach the 5th mind (or 8th mind in learys model) you realize that all mind is one mind and that universe is zero one and infinite. Not that you seem like the kind to reach enlightment under any relegion, be it taosim Buddhism, discordiansim or what not.